Aldous Huxley's Biography(Books)(Photos)

Aldous Huxley (1894-1963), english novelist and critic, best
known for his dystopian novel Brave New World (1931).

During the 1920s Huxley formed a close friendship with D.H.
Lawrence with whom he traveled in Italy and France. For most

Besides novels he published travel books, histories, poems,
plays, and essays on philosophy, arts, sociology, religion

of the 1920s Huxley lived in Italy. In the 1930s he moved to
Sanary, near Toulon, where he wrote Brave New World, a dark

and morals.

vision of a highly technological society of the future. In
the1930s Huxley was deeply concerned with the Peace Pledge

Aldous Huxley was born in Godalming, Surrey on July 26,
1894, into a well-to-do upper-middle-class family. His

Union. He moved in 1937 with the guru-figure Gerald Heard to
the United States, believing that the Californian climate

father, Leonard Huxley, was a biographer, editor, and poet.
He first studied at Eton College, Berkshire (1908-13). when

would help his eyesight, a constant burden. After this
turning point in his life, Huxley abandoned pure fictional

Huxley was fourteen his mother died. At the age of 16 Huxley
suffered an attack of keratitis punctata and became for a

writing and chose the essay as the vehicle for expressing
his ideas.

period of about 18 months totally blind. By using special
glasses and one eye recovered sufficiently he was able to

Brave New World Revisited appeared in 1958. Huxley's other

read and he also learned Braille. Despite a condition of
near-blindness, Huxley continued his studies at Balliol

later works include The Devils Of Loudon (1952), depicting
mass-hysteria and exorcism in the 17th-century France.

College, Oxford (1913-15), receiving his B.A. in English in
1916. Unable to pursue his chosen career as a scientist - or

Island (1962) was an utopian novel and a return to the
territory of Brave New World, in which a journalist

fight in World War on the front - Huxley turned to writing.
His first collection of poetry appeared in 1916 and two more

shipwrecks on Pala, the fabled island, and discovers there a
kind and happy people. But the earthly paradise is not

volumes followed by 1920.

immune to the harsh realities of oil policy. In 1963
appeared Literature And Science, a collection of essays.

Huxley's first novel, Crome Yellow (1921), a witty criticism
of society, appeared in 1921. Huxley's style, a combination

In 1954 Huxley published an influential study of

of brilliant dialogue, cynicism, and social criticism, made
him one of the most fashionable literary figures of the

consciousness expansion through mescaline, The Doors Of
Perception and became later a guru among Californian

decade. In eight years he published a dozen books, among
them Point Counter Point (1928) and Do What You Will

hippies. He also started to use LSD and showed interest in
Hindu philosophy. In 1961 Huxley suffered a severe loss when

(1929).

his house and his papers were totally destroyed in a
bush-fire. Huxley died in Los Angeles on November 22, 1963.